To avoid the crazy roaming fees ($5.00 CAD/minute) charged by my cell provider, a few months ago I purchased a cell phone to use while I’m in Manila. The phone uses the Filipino Globe network and is pay-per-use. I purchase pre-paid cards and then load the amount into the account based on the phone number. The credits are valid for 60 days from the time of load. Basically, it works the same as a standard pay-as-you-go phone in North America.

All things considered, it’s not too expensive. It costs approximately 21 pesos a minute (approx 46 cents CAD) to call Edmonton and 30 pesos (65 cents CAD) to send a text message. While that sounds expensive by our standards, it’s much cheaper than what I would spend if I were to call home through the hotel phone. A 15 minute call on the hotel phone cost a little over $19 CAD. A 55 minute call on my cell cost $26 CAD. As you can see there’s a huge difference between paying 46 cents a minute and $1.26 a minute!

A predetermined number of local text messages are provided free when you load your card (85 free texts with 500 peso load, 35 with 300p load), but there is a fee for local calling. I’ve noticed that very few people actually talk on their cell phones – they’re all too busy texting and I’ve also picked up the habit.

The free texts add up to a significant number after time and remain on your account even when your phone is out of load (you can’t send text messages when your phone is out of load, but you can receive incoming calls and texts). The number does not reset. Since February, I’ve accumulated over 350 free texts that I haven’t yet used. Each time I load the phone, I obtain more free texts. Despite sending dozens of messages I day, I doubt I can make my way through all of them before I leave at the end of August.

Technorati Tags: cell phone, text messaging

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.